Yankees looking to trade Sonny Gray, who appears not to be part of team’s 2019 plans

The Yankees will be seeking to trade starting pitcher Sonny Gray this offseason, general manager Brian Cashman announced in a press conference at Yankee Stadium on Friday.

Cashman says he’ll be seeking a trade for Gray, for his sake and the sake of the Yankees. So, on a day when Cashman was pretty guarded about offseason, he was clear on Sonny Gray. If he finds a trade for him, he’s getting moved out of here.

“Someone, if they trade for him, is going to get the player that we wanted,” Cashman told reporters. “I would predict that it’s in our best interest to see if we can match up with somebody and give him the opportunity to do that somewhere else and I think they’ll be in better position to unlock what he’s truly capable of.”

Gray was 11-9 this season with a 4.90 ERA and 1.496 WHIP in 130.1 IP. He also finished with 57 walks and 123 strikeouts. The former All-Star who finished third in Cy Young voting in 2015 with the Oakland Athletics will turn 29 years old next month, and his final year of arbitration is 2019.

Gray’s worst start in pinstripes came on Aug. 1 at Yankee Stadium against the Baltimore Orioles. He was booed off the mound, exiting after just 2 2/3 innings in which he allowed seven runs on eight hits while walking two. One day later, Cashman announced that Gray would be bumped from the Yankees’ starting rotation, transferring him to the bullpen for the foreseeable future.

Gray’s string of disaster starts while in rotation were bad, and it didn’t help that the Yankees were fighting to break through a tight American League East.

In 2018, the right-hander was 4-4 when pitching in the Bronx, and 7-5 on the road where he struck out 78 in 71 innings pitched. He also posted a 6.98 ERA in Yankee Stadium this season while delivering a 3.17 ERA on the road, so a change of scenery figures to suit him well.